


if you thought the head trauma was bad...

by escapismandsharpobjects



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Concussions, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Whump, Whumptober 2020, this isn't actually super whumpy and i do apologize for that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:48:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27218899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/escapismandsharpobjects/pseuds/escapismandsharpobjects
Summary: whumptober day 26 - prompt: concussion.He doesn’t even see the blow coming. One second, he’s punching the other man in the chest, sending him stumbling backwards, a rush of adrenaline overtaking him as he thinks, I’m going to win; and the next, a fist collides with his head so hard that he actually sees stars, and tastes blood, and collapses to the ground.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley & Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 48
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	if you thought the head trauma was bad...

**Author's Note:**

> hi! this fic is not that great and i'm sorry :'( but maybe you will like it anyway? idk.

He doesn’t even see the blow coming. One second, he’s punching the other man in the chest, sending him stumbling backwards, a rush of adrenaline overtaking him as he thinks,  _ I’m going to win; _ and the next, a fist collides with his head so hard that he  _ actually  _ sees stars, and tastes blood, and collapses to the ground.

He lies on the concrete, dazed, ears ringing. His head feels all kinds of strange, hurting on the back as well as the front where he’d been punched, thanks to his collapse. He hears shouting from around him and a cry of victory from his opponent, and then someone is hauling him to his feet and telling him to  _ get outta here, you’re done for the night. _

Eddie is well aware that he’s done, but can’t bring himself to pull away from the support of whoever is currently holding him up. They do it for him, though, giving him a gentle push away.

He stumbles and falls to his knees, his head spinning. He gives himself a second to get reoriented as best as he can, then very slowly pushes himself up and stands, then walks shakily to his truck. 

He sinks down into the driver’s seat and gives his head a shake, intending to clear up the ringing in his ears. All that this accomplishes, though, is making his head throb and his vision swim, so he stops, and rests his head against the steering wheel for a moment, trying to think and not having much luck.

_ Buck,  _ he finally decides. He should go see Buck. 

Fifteen minutes later, he’s in the parking lot at Buck’s place, and he can’t really remember how he got there. His truck is fine, though, and no police sirens break through the constant noise in his ears, so he figures he’d driven responsibly enough on the way here.

_ Why _ is he here, again? Did Buck ask him to come? He can’t remember. But he’s here, and Buck will be, too, so he goes inside.

\--

Buck jumps a little as someone knocks on his door. He pauses the movie he’s watching and gets up, checking the time.  _ Who the hell is at my door at midnight? _ he wonders, hoping it’s nothing bad but figuring it’s nothing good.

He’s right. As soon as he opens the door, Eddie is falling inside, a nasty bruise forming on the left side of his face and blood drying on the back of his head. Buck catches him immediately, slipping an arm around his shoulders and pulling him inside.

“Jesus, Eddie, what happened?” he asks, leading him to the couch and lowering him down. 

Eddie looks up at him in confusion, and Buck notes with worry that his pupils are slightly different sizes.  _ Concussion, _ he thinks. 

“Your head, Eddie,” he reminds the other man. “What happened?”

Eddie scrunches up his face in concentration, and finally says, “I got hit.”

“Hit?” Buck asks, not liking the direction this conversation is going.

Eddie sighs, trying his best to focus on Buck’s face as he works out what to say. “Some guy punched me,” he explains.

_ “Eddie,”  _ Buck says, half-stern, half-concerned. “What guy?”

“I dunno,” Eddie tells him, honestly. “Just some guy.”

_ I’m going to have to drag this out of him, _ Buck thinks. He’s not sure how angry he should be at Eddie, given the current circumstances, but he  _ is  _ angry, because he’s sure he knows what happened - Eddie was street fighting again, and got knocked around a little more than he’d been bargaining for.

Even if he is mad, though, he doesn’t want to let Eddie know. Not right now, when he’s gazing around Buck’s apartment like he can’t remember how he got there. “I’m not mad,” he says, and he gives Eddie a gentle smile. “You were street fighting, right?”

Eddie looks down. “Yeah,” he admits, softly.

“Okay,” Buck says, and decides that’s good enough for now. They’ll talk about this later. “Thank you for telling me.”

Buck gets up from his position on the couch and heads into the bathroom to grab his first-aid kit and some washcloths. He’s going to patch Eddie up a little, then take him to Urgent Care. Ordinarily, he’d either have called 911 already or he’d take Eddie to a regular doctor, but it’s the middle of the night and he doesn’t think waiting till morning is the best idea, but nor does he think Eddie’s concussion is especially bad. Upon noting this, he comes to the startling realization that Eddie had to have gotten here somehow, and he’s betting he didn’t walk.

He emerges back into the living room, supplies in hand, fully intending on telling Eddie off for driving while concussed, but as soon as he comes into Eddie’s field of vision, Eddie’s asking him where he went and looking at him with such obvious concern on his face that Buck can’t stand the thought of yelling at him.  _ When he’s feeling better, _ he decides, and returns to his place next to Eddie on the couch.

“What’re you doing?” Eddie asks, tripping slightly over the words. Buck has a first-aid kit and a washcloth and Eddie doesn’t think either of those items is going to help him very much. His head just hurts, that’s all. 

“‘M fine,” he insists, reaching up a hand to bat away the cloth that Buck is trying to clean his face with.

“You’re  _ not  _ fine, Eddie, you’re concussed,” Buck explains, pushing his hand away and lightly wiping some of the dirt off of Eddie’s face. 

“I am?” Eddie asks, after taking a minute to process the words.

“Yeah,” Buck affirms, gently turning Eddie’s head to the side to inspect the back of his head. 

As he’d thought, it’s only a small scrape, but, as is often the case with head wounds, it had bled quite a lot. He begins the careful process of scrubbing the blood out of Eddie’s hair, as best as he can with only a damp washcloth. 

“Doesn’t feel nice,” Eddie mumbles, and Buck stops what he’s doing a moment to rub a hand on his back. 

“I know,” he says, resuming his cleaning and apologizing when Eddie winces as he hits a sore spot.

A couple of minutes pass in relative silence, with Buck finishing up with Eddie’s hair and moving on to inspecting his hands, which are scraped up and bruising across the knuckles. 

He’s about to start bandaging an especially large scrape when Eddie makes a strange sort of choked noise, and he only has time to say, “I don’t feel so-” before he’s leaning forward and throwing up, stars flashing across his field of vision for the second time that day as the pain in his head spikes.

Buck’s hand comes up on Eddie’s back as he coughs and sniffs. “It’s okay, Eddie,” he says, rubbing a hand between his shoulder blades. “You’re okay.”

Eddie sure doesn’t  _ feel  _ okay. His head feels like it might explode and his ears have started ringing again and now his throat is burning too, and so is his face, because he’s just been sick on Buck’s floor, and Buck is already probably mad at him for street fighting again, and he hadn’t wanted to, really, but everything had just felt like so much and he hadn’t known what else to do, and-

“Breathe, Eddie,” says Buck’s voice, cutting through his rising panic. “I’m here, it’s okay.” 

Slowly, Eddie’s breathing evens back out, and he leans back into the couch with his eyes closed, like that will stop Buck from seeing the tears on his cheeks.

“It’s okay, Eddie,” he says, yet again, gently reaching up a hand to brush away his tears.

“It’s not,” Eddie says, very quietly. 

“Okay, maybe not,” Buck admits, carefully pulling Eddie closer to him with an arm around his shoulders. “But we’re going to take you to Urgent Care, and make sure you’re alright, and then we’ll bring you back here and you can rest, and we’ll work on being okay in the morning.”

_ That sounds nice, _ Eddie decides, leaning his head into Buck’s shoulder. “We’ll be okay in the morning,” he echoes.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you very much for reading this!!! i know it was not so good and i apologize!


End file.
